How to Search

This library includes a lot of information, but you may find that,
sometimes, you need to search for an answer. This is especially true
for character discussion threads. I will explain some basic search
methods to help you find answers. For this Library page, you can use
Ctrl+F on your keyboard to search for character strings to find things
more quickly than scrolling. For example, to find info about
powershielding, you might press ctrl+F then type "powershield" or try
"power shield".

This is probably the most important search function to understand
since Smashboards can be hard to navigate but contains a vast wealth
of information. In the top right corner of each Smashboards page
there is a search box. Click in it and a number of options will
appear in a drop down menu. The most important ones, in my opinion
are “Posted by Member,” “search this thread
only,” and “search this forum only.” Those will
help you focus your search. Some of these options only appear on
specific pages.

There is actually some decent information and discussion on
/r/SSBM
especially for newer players. You might be able to find useful stuff
on /r/smashbros, too. NanchoMan wrote a wonderful bit about
using the Reddit search bar. Their wiki
page is full informative themed threads.

Google knows all. If you are having trouble finding stuff on
Smashboards or Reddit, you might have some luck with Google.
Google’s search engine is a bit stronger than those others'. If
not stronger, Google is different and may prioritize different
results allowing you to find what you want. When searching with
Google, use the ‘site:’ function to get results from
specific websites. Typing “site:[website]” will only
return results from that URL. Use “site:smashboards.com”
or “site:reddit.com/r/ssbm” to refine your search. There
are lots of other tips and tricks for searching using google.
Here is a good infographic about it by
HackCollege.

The SSBWiki has a lot of hidden gold. There is good information on
there, and there is wrong or outdated information too. A lot of
articles are incomplete. Still, it is worth checking out because it
may have some stuff that is “too simple” to be discussed
in guides and write-ups.

Fundamental
Concepts, Improvement, and Practicing

Beginner

Information for beginners. Start here if you are just learning the
game.

NMW explains a stratified way to progress in Melee. Those strata
are techskill, punish game, DI, neutral game, and innovation. It
provides a general roadmap you can use to look forward on your
journey to goddom.

Armada, the best player in the world at the time of posting this, gives the following advice to new players: stick to one character, be open-minded, work on movement, analyze your own matches, and play to learn not tow win.

Advanced

This section provides sources for more advanced, extremely useful
tech. Compiled mostly by SleepyK. Shoutouts to him :3

A simple video about the essentials of directional influence. Some
of the info in this video is slightly wrong for the sake of
simplicity and brevity. For a more complete explanation of DI, read
this post: The Specifics of Trajectory DI.

Phanna explains various ways to drop through platforms including
normal platform drop, Isai drop, shield drop, no-impact drop,
waveland drop, and PC jump drop. There are better resources on shield
dropping elsewhere in this library. Additionally, there is a mistake
describing the Isai drop. One does not dash upon landing, but rather,
walks.

Improving and Problem Solving

This video is a rant, but is all very informative. SleepyK is
mostly targeting people who say they want to be good but do not
follow through with it. He also talks about situational analysis
starting at 9:53, which is VERY USEFUL and a constructive way to
view the game.

An article about Kira, a Sheik main from SoCal. The value in this
article is the section about changing habits. Breaking habits can be
hard and many people try to do it wrong. This article explains it
scientifically and gives advice.

Emotions are a warning sign of something being off-kilter. Learn
to deal with this through focused self-awareness allowing you to find
the source of that emotion. Then you can work on treating the
cause.

This is a book written to address the mental side of
performance in sports, specifically tennis. A strange suggestion, but
its praises are sung far and wide by smashers who have read it.

“The thesis of this book is that neither mastery
nor satisfaction can be found in the playing of any game without giving
at least some attention to the relatively neglected skills of the inner
game. This is the game that takes place in the mind of the player, and
it is played against such obstacles as lapses in concentration,
nervousness, self-doubt, and self-condemnation…

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of
relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis
for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game
lies in not trying too hard. He aims at the kind of spontaneous
performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one
with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own
limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hangups
of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win
which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by
losing.

There is a far more natural and effective process for
learning and doing almost anything than most of us realize. It is
similar to the process we all use, but soon forgot, as we learned to
walk and talk. It uses the so-called unconscious mind and more than the
deliberate “self-conscious” mind… This process
doesn’t have to be learned; we already know it. All that is
needed is to unlearn those habits which interfere with it and then to
just let it happen.”

Buscuits, a psychology grad student who studies mental states
while playing video games, shares notes on what she knows about
“flow state.” From Wikipedia: “flow, also known as zone, is the
mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is
fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and
enjoyment in the process of the activity.”

Lade discusses accepting what you cannot control, having the
wherewithall to recognize when and where things go wrong, believing
in yourself, taking responsibility for your failures, giving your
opponent credit for their successes, not over-adapting, and knowing
that everyone bleeds.

A professional Magic the Gathering player discusses the
personality type he named Bruce. Bruce loses on purpose because he
needs to lose. “Did you ever know someone who seemed like a
born loser? Someone who just couldn't catch a break no matter
what they did? Someone who always found a way to end up just short of
being the winner? Someone who was cursed with more"bad
luck" than anyone who has ever lived? Someone who could always
preface his answer to"how'd you do?" with the
word"if?"”

This post covers two very different topics, but both are useful.
The first topic is about how different characters utilize different
traits and styles better than others. Because of this, one can learn
different things from playing and analyzing different characters
(e.g. Advance, Attack, Avoid). The second is about
approaching and what it means, a more complicated idea than one might
first believe.

“What I'd like to analyze here is exactly what it takes
to improve, pinpointing the hows and whys of what it takes to ascend
to the next level in one's game… There's no checklist
you can follow to improving… But what there ARE that we can
highlight are the milestones that one must arrive at, and conquer,
before moving on to the next phase of improvement.”

While it is a Marth guide, the fundamentals section explains a lot
about the theory of Melee. Tai once said something along these lines,
“I wanted to write a fundamentals guide, but MIOM wanted
character guide so I wrote a fundamentals guide in the guise of a
Marth guide.”

An insightful article about navigating the space of suboptimal
strategy to counter the particular suboptimal strategy of an
opponent. David Sirlin explains it a bit better (or at least in more
depth) here.

While personal opinions of Mr. Sirlin vary, his ideas are sound.
This series on Playing to Win gives powerful insight on the mind of a
winner and explains complicated aspects of how games work
fundamentally. The section about Yomi is a must-read.

In UmbreonMow's Drastic Improvement guide, he has a section on
teams. He discusses utilizing a 2 vs 1 vs 1 strategy and categorizing
opponents as conservative or aggressive to help define your in game
choices.

Tech

Mahie is slightly wrong. It only works for Marth, Roy, and Samus
because their shields are programmed weird. It kinda works for
characters with low crouches like Sheik, Jigglypuff, and Kirby but
not to the same level of effect.

Some people hold their controller differently to make things
easier. This is a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages
of different styles. It is in the context of Peach, but the
information is easily generalized to other characters. Here are two
videos showing claw grip. 1,
2. Pay attention to both the left and right hands.

This is a playlist of interviews conducted on Tafokints’s 12
hour stream geared towards improvement. He interviews several
community members asking about how they got gud, their roads to
prominence, and advice.

Ask Me Anything threads mostly contain crap irrelevant to
improving, but there can be nuggets of information in them. This
link will take you to a list of AMAs done on r/smashbros. Scroll
down to see melee. Arc and HugS have done AMAs on r/ssbm.

JazzDynamite asked top players “Given a hypothetical player
of top 5-6 skill, which characters could they use to win a tournament
like The Big House 5? Assuming they put all of their time/effort into
that character?

They used an eye tracker to figure out where people look when they
play Street Fighter. Players often ask, “Where should I be
looking?” and this gives you an eye-dea of what experienced
players do. The tracker follows the player playing Elena. Notice that
the eye focuses in the center during neutral gameplay, and focuses on
Ken when waiting for reactions.

Armada advises players to overshoot or undershoot their moves, crouch cancel, have multiple mixups, use different moves based on the opponent's percent, and stuff aggressive opponent's moves with your own.

Frame Data and Technical
Knowledge

An amazing compilation of frame data gathered without using any
kind of special tools or AR. It mainly focuses on ranking each
character’s options such as frames of jump squat, roll
distance, shield size, jump height, etc.

Schmooblidon breaks down how one can manipulate environmental
collision boxes (ECBs) to land quickly on platforms. He explains no impact lands, aerial interrupts, platform cancels, and platform warps.
Additionly,
here is a list of every move that can be platform canceled.

A tool that calculates trajectories and hitstun. It is useful for
seeing how various factors affect knockback, and can be used to
calculate kill percents. Schmooblidon also made tutorials, 1
and 2, for using it.

This thread is a goldmine of information. Not only is it
technical analysis, but it also applies that analysis to actually
playing the game. There is lots of good information in there for
every character main. A lot of it is about Marth. Some other
general info includes turn animation info on smash turns and tilt
turns, rebound and clanking, grab breaks, shield drops, light
powershield, control stick input maps, grounded actionable ledge
intangibility, environmental collision box explanation, shield SDI,
Z-powershield, shy guy DI, Fountain of Dreams platform heights, a
hitbox spreadsheet, and much much more.

Character Guides

I made this section because I had a lot of links for Marth and
Peach. As I have stumbled across links for other characters, I have
developed their sections. If a character is not included, it is because
I would only be linking the stickied threads on Smashboards. Check out
Smashboards’ character discussions to start
research if you do not see your character here. If you have any
suggestioned links, I would love to hear them.

They are: not getting much off throws, usind side-b to recover too predictably, double laser from the ledge too predictably, spamming spotdodge, shooting the same number of lasers before approaching, not dash dancing, and using dair too much.

Video of various kill moves being DSDI’d as Jigglypuff to survive. The
percents in the video are the limiting cases. Some of these moves
are stale when used on Jigglypuff so the percentages may be
slightly higher than with a fully un-stale move.

These guides are pretty simple. In his words, “They're
mainly aimed at players who struggle with a matchup and need a good
starting point.” This also includes a very detailed flowchart
to chaingrab Fox to death on FD (this was probably written for PAL
Fox, but most of it still applies).

Compilation of information from various Marth players. None of
it is tested so some info may be inaccurate. It is a place to
start. I have found Beat’s chaingrab flowchart above to be
pretty effective even in NTSC.

A guide on how to play Marth. This guide is unique from the rest
in its emphasis on explaining the fundamentals. Even players who do
not play Marth could learn a lot from this guide. Tai also
discusses each of Marth’s moves and how they are useful, or
not. At the end, he gives a few matchup tips.

Kadano applies intensive frame data analysis to optimize Marth
play. Most of the information is indexed in the main post, but the
second post, below the indexing, also includes more information
that is not indexed.

A compilation video of Mew2king edgeguarding with Marth. I
suggest putting on your favorite music or Pandora station and
watching these attentively. Get a feel for how Mew2king edgeguards.
You can also learn a lot using situational analysis by creating
flowcharts of the options Mew2king has and the opponent has and
then analyzing the options they choose to do in each situation.

VaNz discusses Peach’s matchups, giving some dos and
don’ts. It is an outdated source, but much of the information
and tactics are still good. If not, they provide a good starting
point to begin approaching the matchups. Search the thread too for
additional information.

Peach bomber does a lot of shield damage. For comparison,
Marth's shield breaker uncharged does 31.78 shield health damage.
Peach smash bomber does 19.88. Max shield health is 60. So this
should break shields when the opponent has about 1/3 of their
shield left. Stitch face does about 21.5. Mr. Saturn does about
32.

A video showcasing Samus’s options she can perform
intangibly from a ledgedash. It does not show her options after an
aerial interrupt from the ledge which grants more intangibility for
her than ledgedash.

A compilation video of Mew2king edgeguarding with Sheik. I
suggest putting on your favorite music or Pandora station and
watching these attentively. Get a feel for how Mew2king edgeguards.
You can also learn a lot using situational analysis by creating
flowcharts of the options Mew2king has and the opponent has and
then analyzing the options they choose to do in each situation.

A Series of videos where Tafokints teaches Sheik to Atrioc.
“You may know the techniques, but you may not know how to use
them.” There is lots of good fundamental or generalizable
information in there, too.